TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding the denial of abuses of human rights connected to sports mega-events*
AU - Horne, John
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - Academics debate the positive and negative consequences of hosting sports mega-events, and although there is a general recognition that doing so cannot be a panacea for solving other social issues, who wins and who loses tends to be the same. This article considers why mega-events are not more regularly resisted given the routinization of harm to local populations that they tend to invoke. It develops ideas derived from the late sociologist and criminologist Stanley Cohen concerning the relationships between, and the politics of, denial and acknowledgement, with specific attention to the role of academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. The article illustrates the difficulties in exposing, contesting and transforming these human rights abuses, but suggests that there are grounds for optimism as new strategies for communicating human rights abuses in connection with sports mega-events are developed.
AB - Academics debate the positive and negative consequences of hosting sports mega-events, and although there is a general recognition that doing so cannot be a panacea for solving other social issues, who wins and who loses tends to be the same. This article considers why mega-events are not more regularly resisted given the routinization of harm to local populations that they tend to invoke. It develops ideas derived from the late sociologist and criminologist Stanley Cohen concerning the relationships between, and the politics of, denial and acknowledgement, with specific attention to the role of academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media. The article illustrates the difficulties in exposing, contesting and transforming these human rights abuses, but suggests that there are grounds for optimism as new strategies for communicating human rights abuses in connection with sports mega-events are developed.
KW - Mega-events
KW - denial
KW - human rights
KW - moral panic
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85018663751&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1080/02614367.2017.1324512
DO - 10.1080/02614367.2017.1324512
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85018663751
VL - 37
SP - 11
EP - 21
JO - Leisure Studies
JF - Leisure Studies
SN - 0261-4367
IS - 1
ER -